Ein Gedanke zu „Die Stände“

For these identified citizens to transact with each other, Estonia passed the Digital Signatures Act back in 2000. The state standardized on national Public-key Infrastructure (PKI), which binds citizen identities to their cryptographic keys, and now doesn’t care if any Tiit and Toivo (to use some common Estonian names) sign any contract between them in electronic form with certificates, or plain ink on paper.

Even more interestingly, there is a flip-side to the fully digitized nature of Republic of Estonia: taken to the max, having the bureaucratic machine of a country humming in the cloud increases the cost of any potential physical assault to the state. Imagine if physical invasion of this piece of Nordic land by anyone would not stop the government operating, but booted up a backup replica of the digital state hosted in some other friendly European territory.

Scientist Charles Neumann loses a leg in an industrial accident. It’s not a tragedy. It’s an opportunity. Charlie always thought his body could be better. He begins to explore a few ideas. To build parts. Better parts.

Prosthetist Lola Shanks loves a good artificial limb. In Charlie, she sees a man on his way to becoming artificial everything. But others see a madman. Or a product. Or a weapon.

The world is run by American corporations; there are no taxes; employees take the last names of the companies they work for; the Police and the NRA are publicly-traded security firms; the government can only investigate crimes it can bill for.

Hack Nike is a Merchandising Officer who discovers an all-new way to sell sneakers. Buy Mitsui is a stockbroker with a death-wish. Billy NRA is finding out that life in a private army isn’t all snappy uniforms and code names. And Jennifer Government, a legendary agent with a barcode tattoo, is a consumer watchdog with a gun.